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The Ukrainian government used Christmas, which residents celebrated for the first time on December 25 this year, to “secretly” try to increase the number of soldiers at the front. She has submitted a draft law to parliament that primarily lowers the age limit for recruits. According to experts, local President Volodymyr Zelensky left this step to the government so that his already declining popularity would not decline.
The lack of recruits is endangering Ukraine’s war effort, which has faced Russian aggression since February last year. Russia, which has three times the population, can still deploy new forces despite heavy losses on the front. Kiev therefore wants to lower the conscription age and make it more difficult for men to avoid mobilization.
Fearing that the new measure would be unpopular and provoke criticism, the Ukrainian government submitted it to parliament at Christmas. The Radio Free Europe server pointed this out.
Some of the opposition criticized the move. Holos MP Solomija Bobrovská, for example, said the timing was designed to go unnoticed, calling it a “Bolshevik” tactic.
Furthermore, the law was proposed to parliament by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, and not by Zelensky, as one might expect. According to some experts, the president wanted to avoid criticism because he feared that his popularity would continue to decline. While in December 2022, according to a survey by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, 84 percent of Ukrainians trusted Zelensky, a year later the figure was only 62 percent.
Parliament is due to debate the bill in its first reading next Sunday and some experts say it could come into force as early as the end of this month. The law primarily provides for a reduction in the age of recruits to 25 years. Currently, authorities can only mobilize men between the ages of 27 and 60. Ukrainians between the ages of 18 and 26 can volunteer to take part in the fighting.
Government without trust
“The president did not behave like a statesman who should publicly take responsibility and explain why this law is necessary,” said Ukrainian lawyer and activist Gennady Druzhenko.
According to him, the government introduced the law because it was not very popular anyway and, unlike the president, it had nothing to lose. According to a survey by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, only 26 percent of Ukrainians trusted the government at the end of last year, compared to 52 percent in December 2022.
Falling support could be a problem for Zelensky as he tries to defend the presidency. Elections were scheduled to take place in Ukraine this spring, but due to the ongoing conflict, parliament postponed them until the end of the war.
Disputes between the president and the military
On the contrary: the army continues to enjoy high levels of support. According to recent polls, he enjoys the trust of 96 percent of those surveyed, and 88 percent trust the commander of the armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny. But he and the president reportedly clashed in recent months after a general criticized the Army’s progress on the front lines in the Economist magazine and described the situation on the battlefield as a stalemate.
At a press conference on December 19, a few days before the proposal was presented, Zelensky said that the Ukrainian military leadership was proposing to call up an additional 450,000 to 500,000 soldiers. He added that he would like an explanation for such a big request.
Zaluzhnyi confirmed that he needed more men to make up for expected losses and give a break to soldiers who have been fighting at the front for a long time. However, he stressed that although the Ministry of Defense worked with the army on the new law, the changes were decided by the government as the army has no legislative powers. Neither Kiev nor Moscow publish official data on military losses.
Druzhenko expects that the presidential office and the army will shift responsibility for the bill “like a hot potato” because of the disputes. However, the head of the Kiev International Sociological Institute, Anton Hrushetsky, pointed out that 59 percent of respondents trust both the president and Zalužny at the same time. In his opinion, this shows that Ukrainians want unified leadership of the country.
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